TRP: Larkin and Hansel (Kheman)
Izzy: at 9:18 AM SETTING: Just outside the Eldath sanatorium, in one of the many well-maintained gardens, late evening. Hansel swayed on his feet slightly, arms crossed, surly at having been called away from his very important task of drinking himself into oblivion. But fine. The kid wanted to end this now, he had no objections. He just would've preferred to be less sober for it. It was taking that scrawny cleric longer to get her than it should. Or Hansel was just impatient. Probably that one.(edited) Jen: at 9:55 AM The cleric returned faster than she had expected. He stood at the entrance to the warded garden, sour look on his face and gesturing to her but not coming closer. He could've just agreed to deliver the note right away, but no... "I need to go talk to someone," Larkin said as she stood up from the bench. She squeezed her father's hand. "Be back soon." She walked out the gate and the little cleric shrank away from her. "He's over there." he pointed. "Can I have my alms box back now?" "Oh. Yeah." She handed it to him, then turned to walk towards the tall shadow she suspected to be Hansel. Larkin did not know yet what to say to him. Shout? Threaten? But about what? She'd suspected Hansel had deliberately hurt his crew but after hearing the story from her father... she couldn't quite place her finger on it but something had changed. She pushed up her sleeves as she approached Hansel and held up her arms, showing him her bare hands. "Let's have a chat." Izzy: at 9:59 AM Suspicious. If she planned to kill him with her bare hands, that was going to be harder than she was clearly anticipating, even if he wasn't intending to fight back. Would her hands even make it around his throat? Maybe he should just give her his trident. "What's there to talk about?" he grumbled. Jen: at 10:03 AM "Pa told me what happened." She crossed her arms, standing a good six feet away from Hansel and looked him over. He seemed unsteady. Drunk. Wouldn't look her in the face at all. " Now tell me your version. All of it and no lies." Izzy: at 10:06 AM "Sure he told you everything already." He shifted, glancing away. "I saw him already, y'know. Before you got there. Clerics told me he gets nightmares but he's doin' better since he got here." Finally meeting her eyes, he added, "I assume I don't gotta tell you not to let him know I'm here. Wouldn't be good for him." Jen: at 10:16 AM I saw him already Larkin's epression froze at that and her nails dug into her arms. A strange mixture of rage and fear washed over her at the thought that Hansel had sought out her father. Not that she really thought he'd have harmed him but... She remembered the look on her dad's face when he had said Hansel's name. So much terror, so much revulsion. "Don't do that again," she said, her voice raspy and cold. "Don't you ever try to see him again. You don't fucking get to tell me what's good for him." Izzy: at 10:27 AM "I won't," he said immediately. Wouldn't be an issue if she'd just get on with it, anyway, but he hadn't planned to. "I didn't fuckin' come here to terrorize him, Larkin. I just wanted to see if he was ... I don't know. Not all right." He looked away again, arms still crossed. "Coping." Jen: at 10:38 AM No. No, Larkin believed he hadn't wanted to hurt her dad. Something in the way he said it made her feel pity for him despite herself. Fuck. Something about this guy made it really fucking hard to stay angry at him. On the ship he'd lashed out at her and tried to put on a stony facade but now he only looked... beaten. The misery seeping out of him like a stench. Ready to accept whatever was coming for him. She sighed. "Look, Hansel," she tried but her voice wouldn't be quite as cutting as before. "Here's what's going to happen: I'm going to write a letter to my uncle in Skyport. Renar Basha, maybe you've heard of him. I'm going to tell him exactly what happened to his brother and I'll have to put a name in there so he knows who to hunt down cut apart piece by piece. And it'll have to be your name unless-" she raised a finger and pointed it at him. "Unless you give me a damn good reason not to. So what I need is your version of the story." Izzy: at 10:43 AM Hansel shrugged. "Let it be my name. That's the truth. That's my version of the fuckin' story." He paused, narrowing his eyes. It was pretty fucking weird that she was even giving him a chance, actually. He could claim he was too drunk to understand, but he didn't think Sober Hansel would get it, either. "Wait, what did Kheman tell you?" Jen: at 10:49 AM Larkin felt her patience with this slipping. Why couldn't he just talk? Why wouldn't anyone ever just fucking talk? She was even trying to help here, damn this guy. She took a breath to swallow the annoyance, then gave him a thin smile. "Interrogation rule number one: don't tell 'em what you want to hear. Let 'em come up with the story themselves." Izzy: at 10:53 AM He snorted. Well, Kheman must have told her ... something. Something that didn't reflect on him too poorly. Shit, now he kind of wished he had talked to him. Maybe it would have been fine. Maybe -- well, it wasn't worth it. Hansel sighed and rubbed a hand over his face. He really needed to either be sober or more drunk for this shit. He glanced around the garden and spotted a stone bench nearby with another set across the pathway from it, where Larkin could sit down as well without having to be too close to him. "All right." He turned and shambled over to the bench, sitting down heavily and gesturing to the other one. "Sit or don't, but it might take a minute." Jen: at 10:55 AM Larkin followed his suggestion, looking around the area for potential listeners but the garden seemed deserted at this hour.(edited) Izzy: at 11:20 AM “All right. Okay. Everything I told you, on the ship -- that was true. Mishka sold us out. Took everything. We were all career pirates, y'know -- we didn't know what else to do." He took a deep breath, head down to look at the ground, not Larkin. "So we got this new ship. Real piece of shit. Scraped by for a while, for about a year. Then we finally got this one good fucking thing." Hansel closed his eyes, almost smiling, thinking about it. "Stole this shipment of cattle. Filled the ship up with'em. It was gonna make us fuckin' rich. We were gonna get a new ship. It was gonna change everything." The smile disappeared. "We butchered one of'em, to celebrate. Actually eat a good fucking meal for once. Your dad and I, we tossed the gristle overboard -- the fat, the bones, the bloody, nasty stuff you can't eat. "Something else found it. Something in the ocean." He voice lowered. He didn't say anything for a while. "We never even saw what it was. It was too dark. But it fuckin' ... destroyed the ship. Got all the cattle. Got most of our supplies. Eventually it left us alone, but we were dead in the water." He straightened and took a deep breath, looking up now, still not at Larkin. His voice leveled out a bit. "We made do for a while. Fixed the ship as best we could. Still had a little food left, managed to fish some. The fucking ship was moving, kind of, it was just ... we weren't even sure if we were headed in the right direction. And we were starving. Not enough fish. No more rations. Kheman did what he could to --." He stopped himself. "There just wasn't enough to go around. "Captain said we'd draw straws." At this point his voice became flat. "Only way to make it fair. Turned out to be my job to ... do the fucking thing. I killed Elitash. Then the captain. Then Crunch." In the back of his mind, Hansel wondered if the names would mean anything to her -- if like Hansel, Kheman had told his kid exciting stories about piracy. "Kheman and I were -- I don't know, in charge somehow. I did the killing, he did the ... the fucking cooking." He didn't feel drunk anymore. Goddammit. "Then there was this storm." He looked down to Larkin, finally, without focusing on her. "Red sky at dawn. Red sky at ... I knew it was gonna be fucking bad. I don't know what I -- I don't know if I'm just fucking crazy, or --." He laughed, completely humorlessly. "I heard a voice in the storm. It told me -- he said if I killed them all I'd survive. It was the only way any of us would survive. I just --." Hansel laid his head in his hands, his voice coming out as almost a whisper. "I just didn't want to fucking die. I don't know if -- I don't know if it made me do it or I chose to. I don't fucking know. But I killed all of them. It was like I wasn't fucking there. Like I watched myself do it and I wanted to stop but I -- I didn't." He fell silent. Jen: at 11:39 AM Larkin didn't know what by all the hells to say to that. So she said nothing. Just stared at Hansel cradling his head in his hands, feeling sick to the bone. It was the same story her father had told, just... different. More visceral. She tried not to feel sorry for Hansel. And failed. Izzy: at 11:49 AM She wasn't responding. He didn't blame her. His guts twisted in on themselves but he made himself keep going. "When the storm was over, I ... It wasn't that I realized what I'd done, because I fucking knew what I'd done." His voice cracked. "But it became real again. Everything became real again. And the decks were covered in blood. And there were just ... parts. Parts of my friends was all that was fucking left of them. One of them was a kid." He took a long, shuddering breath. "One of them was a fucking kid." Again, he was quiet for a moment, but made himself look up, scrubbing at his face and taking a more stable breath as he met Larkin's eyes. "But either I'm not fucking crazy or I just have real bad fucking timing, because it worked. I guess. I survived. After the -- meat -- after -- I was out of food again, there came this wind that blew me right into port. Skyport. And now I walk around like I'm a person." He shrugged. "Like I fuckin' deserve to be here. So please just fucking kill me, all right, Larkin? You happy with that? Get it over with." Jen: at 12:02 PM There still wasn't anything she could say. Everything she had thought she'd say only an hour ago was gone. She looked at Hansel, with this pleading look in his eyes. Like he genuinely wanted her to murder him. She chewed on her lips and the insides of her cheeks, trying to come up with something, any kind of reaction. It felt bad to feel sorry for him. Like she was betraying her father for not jumping to the opportunity. Like she was losing her objectivity, her dispassion. But then again, it had begun slipping away quite some time ago, hadn't it? "Why don't you do it yourself?" she asked. No agression, no cutting edge in her voice this time. Izzy: at 12:09 PM "I tried, when I first came in from sea. Fuckin' ... Jonn wouldn't let me," he muttered. "Then I started thinking about leaving him alone in the world, and that'd be bad for fucking everyone. I'd have to take him with me if I was gonna make that choice and I ... I can't." He shrugged. "I can't kill my kid. Whatever he does. But look, it's -- if anyone deserves to kill me, it's you. It's fine if it's you." Jen: at 12:13 PM "Hm." She tilted her head at him as if considering. "No. Don't think so." Izzy: at 12:17 PM Hansel sighed. "Why fucking not." Jen: at 12:25 PM Larkin shrugged. Yeah, why not? "It's not like it's gonna do anyone any fuckin' good." Izzy: at 12:27 PM He stared at her blankly. "I tried to fucking kill your father. I thought you were out to cut whoever'd hurt him into pieces." Jen: at 12:37 PM "Yeah. Hm." He kind of had a point there, but still. "That's what my uncle's gonna do at least. But to be honest... I'm not sure you deserve that." Or maybe she was just not used to people wanting her to hurt them. Larkin had her face turned away as she debated whether to say one more thing or not. "Seems to me, being alive is far worse punishment for you." Izzy: at 12:38 PM Hansel couldn't contain a ragged laugh. "Fuck." She wasn't wrong. "You are a vicious little shit, aren't you?" Jen: at 12:46 PM Larkin smirked at him. That was fair. "It's how I get by." Izzy: at 12:49 PM He studied her for a moment. She seemed serious. She wasn't angry -- enjoying this a little, even, maybe. Fuck. Was he sure this was Kheman's kid and not one of his? "What are you gonna tell your uncle, then?" Jen: at 12:54 PM "Haven't decided." It was true. She might not want to cut Hansel's throat out anymore but Renar... that was another matter entirely. "I can't just lie to him." Izzy: at 12:58 PM Hansel considered. He didn't really know how this organized crime shit worked. It seemed a lot more complex than just smash-and-grab piracy. "You taking Kheman back to him?" Jen: at 1:01 PM "Eventually. Maybe. He doesn't want to leave yet." Izzy: at 1:03 PM "If he ever does go back -- if he tells Renar what happened ..." Hansel shrugged. "It'll be over, then, no matter what you said. Do what you have to do. Don't get on your uncle's bad side." Jen: at 1:24 PM Larkin made a noncommital humming sound to that. She definitely wasn't planning to but neither did she look forward to seeing Hansel being tortured to death. They'd only really spoken two times now and somehow, this man-eating half-orc bastard was already growing on her. Shit. She needed to get her emotional ties in check or things were bound to turn bad sooner or later. "I'm gonna go check back on dad," she said after some moments of silence and stood up. "Maybe ask him what he thinks." Izzy: at 1:27 PM Hansel's eyes widened. "Don't tell him I'm here." He knew he didn't have to tell her that -- it was just a gut reaction. Jen: at 1:31 PM Larkin stopped and looked back at him. "No. Just gonna ask what he wants done with you." Izzy: at 1:32 PM Hansel nodded silently. Would've been fair of her to snap at him over that. It'd been a stupid thing to say -- of course she wasn't going to torture her father with that. He had ... no idea what Kheman would want done with him. He waited. END(edited) Category:Text Roleplay